Is Email Marketing Right for You?

When deciding if Email marketing is the right medium to showcase your products/services to your ideal audience, it’s always best to carry out some research before investing your time and money.

In today’s day and age, we are spoilt for choice - as there are so many marketing channels to choose from, it’s hard to know where to begin - In Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares book ‘Traction’, which I highly recommend, they’ve broken down marketing into 19 different traction channels ranging from PR to word of mouth, before we even begin exploring the world of digital marketing. This book was introduce to me at a Tech Accelerator Program, Startup Braga which I attended several years ago and introduced me to a no. of marketing channels which were somewhat new to me at the time, namely SEO and email marketing.

So much choice when it comes to marketing channels

One huge advantage of email marketing for startups, is that it can be carried out for a small budget and can be highly effective in generating both B2B leads and also in converting online shopping browsers into buyers.

Here are some points and stats which I pulled from a no. of sources online which may help you arrive closer to a conclusion about whether email marketing is worth considering for your business (No. 1 and 10, I surprisingly came across by accident from my own trial and error when initially trying out email marketing):

1. If you’re hoping to get a high open rate, your best bet is to send an email on a Tuesday.

2. Video emails see click-through rates that are 96% higher than non-video emails.

3. Plain text emails are more likely to be opened than HTML emails (this may be due to the fact HTML emails are lot more likely to be less personal than plain text emails).

4. Only 17% of B2B purchasers are looking to use an online chat feature. They would much prefer using email to discuss a potential purchase or deal.

5. A personalized email message will increase transaction rates up to six times compared to a generic message.

6. Thankfully, sending an email about an abandoned cart has a 40.5% chance of being opened, which can remind buyers of their original interest.

7. Email etiquette was an important factor for 80% of people when deciding whether or not to respond to the message. The biggest reason is usually grammatical errors.

8. 72% of consumers state that email is their number one communication method when it comes to business transactions. This number remains constant even for the younger population.

9. People are twice as likely to interact with an email message than they are with a company’s Facebook account. (We rarely receive messages via Facebook however I imagine this can be very different for more retail and consumer focused businesses)

10. The early bird catches the worm as open rates are highest between the hours of 6 a.m. to 11 a.m.

When it comes to Email Marketing, the Early bird catches the worm

One caveat is that it can be time consuming if you are not using the right tools and don’t have the right process in place, as there are still so many businesses out there who are using email marketing without tracking performance, improving email copy based on their findings and aren’t using the right automation tools to speed up and streamline their process.

If you’re confident that email marketing is the right route to market for your business, then go for it - but it’s always a good practice to try it out alongside a no of other marketing channel, you can compare progress and test, test, test along the way so you can discover what works best for you.

If you’re looking for help with email marketing or looking to decide which channel could work out best for your business, feel free to get in touch.

Is Email Marketing Right for You?

When deciding if Email marketing is the right medium to showcase your products/services to your ideal audience, it’s always best to carry out some research before investing your time and money.

In today’s day and age, we are spoilt for choice - as there are so many marketing channels to choose from, it’s hard to know where to begin - In Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares book ‘Traction’, which I highly recommend, they’ve broken down marketing into 19 different traction channels ranging from PR to word of mouth, before we even begin exploring the world of digital marketing. This book was introduce to me at a Tech Accelerator Program, Startup Braga which I attended several years ago and introduced me to a no. of marketing channels which were somewhat new to me at the time, namely SEO and email marketing.

So much choice when it comes to marketing channels

One huge advantage of email marketing for startups, is that it can be carried out for a small budget and can be highly effective in generating both B2B leads and also in converting online shopping browsers into buyers.

Here are some points and stats which I pulled from a no. of sources online which may help you arrive closer to a conclusion about whether email marketing is worth considering for your business (No. 1 and 10, I surprisingly came across by accident from my own trial and error when initially trying out email marketing):

1. If you’re hoping to get a high open rate, your best bet is to send an email on a Tuesday.

2. Video emails see click-through rates that are 96% higher than non-video emails.

3. Plain text emails are more likely to be opened than HTML emails (this may be due to the fact HTML emails are lot more likely to be less personal than plain text emails).

4. Only 17% of B2B purchasers are looking to use an online chat feature. They would much prefer using email to discuss a potential purchase or deal.

5. A personalized email message will increase transaction rates up to six times compared to a generic message.

6. Thankfully, sending an email about an abandoned cart has a 40.5% chance of being opened, which can remind buyers of their original interest.

7. Email etiquette was an important factor for 80% of people when deciding whether or not to respond to the message. The biggest reason is usually grammatical errors.

8. 72% of consumers state that email is their number one communication method when it comes to business transactions. This number remains constant even for the younger population.

9. People are twice as likely to interact with an email message than they are with a company’s Facebook account. (We rarely receive messages via Facebook however I imagine this can be very different for more retail and consumer focused businesses)

10. The early bird catches the worm as open rates are highest between the hours of 6 a.m. to 11 a.m.

When it comes to Email Marketing, the Early bird catches the worm

One caveat is that it can be time consuming if you are not using the right tools and don’t have the right process in place, as there are still so many businesses out there who are using email marketing without tracking performance, improving email copy based on their findings and aren’t using the right automation tools to speed up and streamline their process.

If you’re confident that email marketing is the right route to market for your business, then go for it - but it’s always a good practice to try it out alongside a no of other marketing channel, you can compare progress and test, test, test along the way so you can discover what works best for you.

If you’re looking for help with email marketing or looking to decide which channel could work out best for your business, feel free to get in touch.